


Three Galleons

by copperbadge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-16
Updated: 2006-12-16
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Hermione has settled into a quiet if unorthodox life with Severus -- until a small problem in the form of a refugee spy calls for an even more unorthodox solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arsenicarcher (Arsenic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/gifts).



> Arsenic challenged me the other day to write Snape/Hermione/Lupin in a hurt/comfort scenario, and VOILA.

It was in the dark time after the war, after the funerals but before the grief had passed. It was in the air, sat on the tongue like raw onion, slept in their beds at night. The war itself was gone, but the shadows were still burnt into the world, and no amount of scrubbing would erase them. Only time would do that. 

Ron had tried to stay, for Hermione's sake, but they ended up screaming at each other with such tiring repetitiveness that finally one night she sat down on the bed after another screaming match and told him if he didn't leave her, she would leave him, so it was only a matter of whether his pride could tolerate the latter. Ron got up out of the bed that moment and left, throwing on clothing over his pyjamas and going to Harry's stylish Bloomsbury flat. They were three, that could never have changed, but they were friends before lovers and it would always have to be that way. Ron lasted two months there before he finally picked up again and went to Tibet, where Charlie was apprenticed to the Dragon Monks in the high mountains. He sent postcards.

Hermione thought of him often and hoped he was finding his peace with the dragons, like Charlie did. She saw now, with the backwards glance of maturity, that she and Ron could never have functioned as lovers. She hadn't respected his intelligence (how could she? he was so _thick_ sometimes) and he hadn't respected her strength, always wanting to protect her, wanting children already. Wanting her to be Molly Weasley, with a brood of children and a bookshelf of cooking and cleaning manuals. 

The day Ron left, Hermione and Harry both saw him off, all three crying and promising to write. Harry never did, but that was Harry, and Hermione always phoned him before sending a letter to Ron so that she could include anything he had to say. 

That day she had gone to Diagon, trying to retrace the patterns of their younger life, meeting in the shops to buy school books, preparing for the long and pleasant journey to Hogwarts each year. She thought mostly of the times she and Ron had come here, wondering what she could have done differently, how she could have fixed things. By the time dark fell, she'd wandered into Knockturn, which held no terrors for her now.

There was the apothecary shop, the one Ron always glared at with cold hard eyes; she'd begged him to go in once, some time she'd actually needed an ingredient for some potion, but that was another shouting match.

She felt like an idiot, knowing she was courting trouble, but she pushed the door open anyway.

"No, you _fool!_ " someone was saying as she walked inside. The shop was never empty, which was a shock considering the way Professor Snape -- Proprietor Snape now, she supposed -- ran his business. "I suppose you wish to cock your potion completely up and blame substandard material. Well, I shall not allow that. I have a reputation to maintain."

She wandered behind barrels of mysterious insects and racks of glass jars, watching through the gaps. At the long polished-wood counter a slip of a woman was trembling, clutching a sheet of parchment in one hand. Snape, his face creased with fury, took it from her hands and began writing on it furiously.

"This is the proper measurement, and you will need dogsblood by weight, not by volume," he snarled. "Emulsify -- emulsify!" he said the word as if it were unspeakable. "You cannot emulsify the potion! WHISK! Do you own such a thing as a whisk, you incompetent harlot?"

"Y-yes," the woman stammered. Snape thrust the paper back at her.

"Bring me your whisk," he ordered. 

"What?" she asked.

"BRING ME YOUR WHISK! When you have shown me you own a whisk, I will provide you with the _proper_ ingredients," he shouted. 

Hermione giggled. She couldn't help it. 

Snape looked up sharply. "You find the idea of emulsifying amusing, do you?" he demanded, peering through the shelves. "Come out, and tell me what is so bloody godforsaken funny about improper alchemy!"

Hermione emerged as the woman fled, taking her place at the counter.

"I was imagining you in class, demanding that we bring you our whisks," she said. Snape looked at her, really looked, and then his sallow skin turned pale.

"What do you want, Granger?" he demanded. "I suppose with you here, Weasley and Potter are a step behind."

Hermione meant to reply smartly, something devastating and crushing to the horrible, ugly, and cruel man in front of her, but instead she burst into tears.

"What are you doing?" he hissed, looking around the shop to see if the other patrons had noticed. Tears ran silently down Hermione's cheeks. "Stop that infernal weeping! Stop it this instant!"

"I can't," she replied. "Ron's gone to Tibet."

Snape leaned back, and she could see perplexity on his face. "Good riddance, I should say," he growled. Hermione felt fresh tears well up. "Don't you -- you are _weeping_ in my dandelion reduction!" 

Hermione looked down and saw her tears landing in an unstoppered glass jar, the sort that normally held sweets. Snape flipped up a trapdoor in the wooden counter, reached under it, and pulled her through, shoving her into a back-room with one hand. 

"If you must weep, be useful," he ordered, handing her a wide wooden salad bowl. She stared at it. "Sit! Sit! Don't stand there like a fountain. Into the bowl," he added, tipping it up so that her tears landed in the broad bottom. She sat obediently and sniffled. 

"You _will_ stop now, just to spite me," he muttered, but she didn't stop; the tears rolled down without any willingness or assistance on her part, splashing into the bowl. He went to the shelves and began taking down paper-wrapped packets, laying them in front of her along with a brass scale and a wooden spoon. 

"You will crush the aconite into the bowl until a thick paste is made," he said, "adding more when it becomes too wet. I trust you can at least manage that simple task?"

She nodded, wiping her nose. 

"Very well. I suppose it's too much to hope that you're a virgin?"

Hermione, who had grasped what he was about now, shook her head morosely.

"I suppose Weasley's to blame for that -- the bowl!" he ordered, as she began crying anew. He left her sobbing in his storeroom and disappeared through the door, where she heard him haranguing everyone who dared approach.

"Goldfish! Do I look like a pet shop?" "Beetles' wings are costly, that is not my lookout. If you want them properly fresh you must breed your own, as any idiot ought to do." "Merlin save us from amateurs -- I suppose you were educated at Beauxbatons, where they teach Potions as if it were a lesson in sauce-making." "Out! Out! Are you illiterate? Do you see the sign? I am closed!"

The last was said over his shoulder as he returned. She was still crying but it had slowed at least, and she had not neglected the aconite. A greyish paste clung to the spoon and pulled away from the sides of the bowl when she stirred. 

"Sufficient," he said, throwing her a reasonably clean handkerchief. She dried her face and blew her nose. "One ounce of belladonna, if you would oblige," he drawled. 

Hermione damply measured the belladonna on the scales while he opened the other packages and began making small piles on the steel workbench. 

"The ingredients must not touch glass," he continued, his hands working busily. Hermione watched them, then followed the line of his arm upwards. He did not dress so differently from their school days; plain black shoes and trousers, with a stiff-collared black shirt. But his sleeves were rolled to the elbows now, and over it all was a worn brown leather tradesman's apron, pitted and scarred from the waist up. 

"What are you staring at? Stir, damn you," he commanded, and she stirred. He did no work himself, except for the measuring, merely barked orders at her until all thought of Ron was gone from her mind. In fact, she had forgotten Ron's existence and the outside world by the time he commanded her to pour the mixture into a wooden jar and sealed it. A scrap of parchment and a paste-pot were flung at her.

"Label it. Clarifying -- "

"Clarifying Concentration," she said. "I know."

"Some mote of education has clung stubbornly, I see," he replied ungraciously from the other room. He returned with a small linen sack and slid it across the table at her. She picked it up and tipped three Galleons into her hand.

"For the potion," he said.

"I don't want paying for it," she retorted.

"Then send it to the devil for all I care, I have book-keeping that must be maintained. You will be paid for the ingredients and your time, and what you do with it is your business. It is dark out. Do you require an escort home?"

Hermione opened her mouth to say she didn't want his money or his protection, and who was he to assume she was even going home, but the artless way in which he'd said it caught her under the gut. 

"You might as well," she replied loftily, "considering the help I've been."

She expected some other sharp answer, but instead a slow grin spread across his face. 

"If you had answered me like that ten years ago I would have respected you more," he said. In as long as it took her to gather her once-more shattered wits, he had taken off the apron and slung a deep green cloak around his shoulders, guiding her out of the shop. They walked out of Knockturn and up Diagon in silence, shoes echoing on the cobbled streets. When she reached the door of her building, just outside in Muggle London, she turned to face him and pressed the bag into his hand.

"For your time," she said, daring him to reply but bolting inside before he could. 

***

It was an odd courtship to be sure, two-parts fencing match and one part awkward romance, but it dulled and eventually eradicated the memory of her and Ron's failure. The bag and its three Galleons had been passed back and forth many times, at first as a symbolic balancing-of-books and then as a secret coin of the realm, a tacit apology, and once, memorably, a form of foreplay. He paid her with it when she spent increasing amounts of time in his shop, and she passed it back to him if he paid for dinner or lent her a book she decided not to return. 

One morning she woke to find him dressing, buckling his belt and buttoning the last loop on his shirt. The bag lay on the pillow next to her.

"What's this for?" she asked, lifting it up sleepily.

"Last night," he answered, and then...amazingly...he winked. Hermione of a year ago might have taken it as some kind of insult, payment for services rendered in the form of sex, but the money had long ago ceased to be money to her. Her sleepy brain tried to recall what she had even done that would deserve The Bag, and her nipples tightened against the sheet as the memory rose. 

Severus was not an easy man to live with, but in that respect he was less difficult than Ron. Ron had not seen her clearly, perhaps not his fault; he would never have been able to trust her intelligence as Severus did, even when he berated her for this or that foolishness. Ron wanted to save her, but Severus expected that if she needed saving she would jolly well tell him, and the rest of the time she could solve her own bloody problems. 

She had not seen herself clearly, either, too caught up in the idea of fumbling teenage sex with Ron to understand her body. Oh, she knew she had breasts, and had used them on a few occasions when nothing else would have been effective persuasion; she had been too long in a war to dismiss the power of a subtle sexual hint. Now, though, she discovered why men made such a fuss over them -- the swell of one cupped in a long-fingered hand, the rasp of a tongue just under her aureole. She discovered too that she had hips, round and sensual in their own right, curving down into thighs. She stopped thinking of herself as a girl, and started noticing that men watched when she walked past. 

She wondered if all men were like that -- intensely sexual, intently erotic. Ron had been considerate when they had sex, something Severus was not, always, but Ron had never made her scream so loud the neighbours knocked on her door to make sure she was all right. Severus, answering it with a bed sheet wrapped around his waist, sent them on their way so thoroughly that they stopped speaking to her altogether. _Have you never heard a woman orgasm? I assure you that you will become familiar with the sound, given time._

Sometimes, a delicious infraction on her idea of sex as lovemaking, they even _fucked._

At first he waved off her concerns of age difference and temperament with an impatient snort, and when she persisted he took to declaring that she believed him to be a dessicated skirt-chasing _pantalone_ of a pervert. What could she do? She gave up.

She had not even thought of her old objections in a long time, as she lay drowsing in the afternoon light her bedroom window allowed, Severus working shirtless at the writing-desk, trying to fabricate an old poison remedy from fragments of some Latin text. They had afternoons together almost as often as evenings; he could close his shop whenever it pleased him, and Hermione's job in the archives of the British Museum's Wizarding Wing was hardly time-sensitive. The Emperor Julian of Rome's scrying glass would still be there tomorrow, as it had been for the last seventeen hundred years. 

"Owl post," he said, seconds before there was a clatter of claws on glass. "One of your idiot admirers, one assumes."

"If it's Ricardo, tell him I have to get rid of you for the weekend before I can go to Italy," she replied as he opened the window, took the letter, and shooed the owl off his books. 

"If I ever meet your imaginary Ricardo I shall slit his throat," Severus announced, slitting the envelope with a very sharp letter-opener for emphasis.

"Good luck," Hermione yawned. "He's Italian. Who's it from?"

He held up another envelope from within the first, examining it. "Telegram office. Sent through the London Magical Post Office...they must have forwarded it. Geroff," he added to Crookshanks, who had leapt into his lap and was removed post-haste. Crookshanks, with catlike perversity, had decided that Severus was his chosen slave, and was indomitable in his quest for ear-scratching and tuna-feeding. 

Severus slit open the second envelope and removed a piece of printed onionskin paper.

"In trouble, no money, please come at once," he read. "Bring reinforcements. The old platform."

Hermione sat up, no longer sleepy. "Who's it from?"

"Avis Incendii." Severus tilted the page slightly. "Whom do you know by that unlikely name?"

"Nobody. Could it have been misdirected?"

He gave her a withering look. "Do you know many women named Hermione? Avis Incendii...rotten dog latin for Firebird."

"Someone from the Order?" she asked. "The old platform -- must be Platform 9 3/4."

"A trap?" he asked. "So late in the game?"

"The game's done," she said, sliding out of bed and going to her closet. "Who's left alive who'd come after me? And ask for reinforcements?"

"Someone who was after me," he replied darkly. She turned to look at him as she pulled a shirt over her head. "Someone who knew you'd bring me."

"Well, they'd have plenty of chances to garotte you in your sleep, the way you snore," she said, kissing his cheek. "Come on. We'd better hurry. If it's a trap we might as well get on with it and if it isn't, someone needs us."

"Bloody Gryffindors," he muttered, but he dressed with as much haste as she had, and in fifteen minutes they were arriving in King's Cross Station. 

"We can't get to the platform now," she said, watching with caution as people passed by. "It's closed in the summers."

"Just as well, it's likely to be deserted," Snape replied. The station was bustling as people left work and made their way home; buskers were doing a brisk business, and so was the news-stand. One man, not busking but begging, had the hood of his tattered coat pulled over his head, shadowing his face. Hermione didn't notice him, her eyes passing over with the practice of a longtime city-dweller, until he was close enough that she could hear him breathing. It sounded like a death-rattle. She ought to know.

"Sickle for a veteran, miss?" he asked, and she was about to do her usual head-shake-and-sorry-look when the words finally triggered in her brain. She looked at him, hunched and hooded, and clutched Severus' arm. She felt him turn too.

"Did you send a telegram?" she asked. 

"Hermione," the voice said, sounding obscenely relieved. "Thank god."

Severus, who hadn't heard the words above the roar of the station, pushed the man back by one shoulder. "Shove off," he said firmly. The man staggered a little but held his ground and reached up. He didn't shed the hood entirely, but he pushed it back enough so that they could see his face, fingers clenching on the sides of the fabric.

It was a terrible face, gaunt to the point where his bones seemed to jut through his skin, with a short bristle of grey hair dusting his scalp. His nose had been broken at some point, and his lips were chapped and split bloody in places. Hermione thought for a terrifying moment that it was Voldemort returned, but the light caught the man's eyes and turned them dusky orange for a second before settling into hazel brown. 

"Don't say my name," he said hurriedly, as Hermione stared at a ghost she thought they'd buried years before. If you could call it that, when there was no body to be put in the ground. He resettled the hood so that it shadowed his face, and cupped his hands like a beggar. "Keep walking. I'll follow."

"The lavatories," Severus said, while Hermione made a show of searching her pockets. "I can take you from there."

He shoved him rudely away and kept walking, not once looking back. Hermione fought the urge; when Severus leaned over and murmured, "Meet you at home," in her ear, she nodded and went to the bathroom herself. It was at least somewhere nobody would _see_ her apparate. 

She stepped into the nearest stall and counted to thirty before Apparating; she didn't trust her nerves and didn't want to splinch, not now of all times. Once home, she went directly to her living room and ran to the kitchen door, where she heard Severus speaking; she found him half-supporting the other man, easing him into a chair at the breakfast-table. He deftly unzipped the coat and wrinkled his nose as he removed it. 

"You reek," he said. The other man looked up at him, blinked, and managed a rusty, rasping laugh.

"I might have known it would be you," he replied. 

Hermione, frozen in the doorway, took in as a portrait what she had only seen sketched in the train station: Remus Lupin, dead two years and more, now sitting in her kitchen and laughing at Severus Snape.


	2. Chapter 2

Remus' bristling hair spoke of a recently-shaved head, and his head itself spoke of utter starvation, little more than a skull with skin stretched over it. He was bare-chested under his coat, and the trousers he had on had gaping holes in the knees and across the thighs. Hermione could see each rib as he sat in her kitchen chair. The muscles on his arms stood out sharply like ropes under his skin. His hands looked as though they would break if they grasped something too tightly. 

His eyes were sunk deep in their sockets but still sharp, and they met hers unflinchingly.

"Hello, Hermione," he rasped. 

"Remus?" she asked.

"Not a very good imitation of my former self," Remus replied. Hermione crossed the kitchen floor and hugged him, wary of his sharp-collarbone and fragile-looking jaw. He smelled foul, but she inhaled anyway. There was a click behind her, and then a hiss. 

"Molest him later," Severus said, his voice snapping her back to reality. "Get him a shirt, woman, before he freezes to death."

Hermione turned and saw he was standing at the stove, cracking eggs in half of an already-hot pan and placing bread in the other half to fry. She ducked out of the kitchen and ran down the hall, rummaging in the odd assortment of Severus's clothing that was the result of sharing-a-flat-without-really-sharing-a-flat. When she returned, Remus was holding his head under the kitchen tap, scrubbing his short hair with dish soap. She hadn't realised he was quite so dirty, but when he emerged from the dishtowel he was drying with, his skin was two shades lighter. It did nothing for his appearance. 

Severus was not a big man, but the shirt hung on Remus' bony shoulders, making him look childlike and small. 

"Sit," Severus ordered, putting the fried eggs on a plate and topping them with the bread. Remus sat and watched the plate with hungry eyes as it was placed before him. "Eat slowly. I'm not about to clean up your vomit," Severus added. 

Remus picked up the bread, tore off a piece of crust, and put it in his mouth. His hands shook as he cut the egg with a fork, and when the bright yellow yolk poured out and pooled on the plate he turned green. 

Hermione sat down next to him and tore off another piece of bread, dipping it in the egg and holding it to his lips. Severus snorted derisively, but Remus ate from her fingers and shot her a quick, furtive, sidelong look of thanks. She fed him another piece of bread and then a small piece of egg, while Severus strode about the kitchen.

"Your pantry is ridiculous," he informed her. "What precisely am I supposed to brew with this paucity?"

She ignored him, dipping another piece of bread in the yolk. Remus ate it, tongue darting out to lick a stray drop from his cracked and bleeding lips. 

"When did you eat last?" she asked softly. 

"Two days ago," he answered. She fed him another piece of bread. He was chewing it when he made a choking noise and shot out of his chair, knocking it over and running to the sink, where he was promptly ill. Severus sneered from his position in front of a hot stewpot. Remus leaned on the edge of the sink, cupping one hand and drinking from it. Hermione led him back to the table and tried again. This time he managed an entire slice of bread, dipped in egg, before he put his fingers to his mouth to block her next attempt. A cup of steaming liquid was thrust under his nose.

"Drink," Severus commanded. "It's a restorative."

"Thank you," Remus replied, sipping it. It couldn't taste very bad, because after a few sips he drained the cup greedily, tipping his head back (oh, it hurt to see the line of his jaw) before setting it next to the half-eaten food. He looked down at the second egg, scooped it up with his fingers, and devoured it like an animal, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He fell on the bread next and ate so quickly she was worried he'd choke, but when he was done he seemed to come back to himself and picked up the napkin next to the plate, wiping his fingers on it.

"Severus," Hermione said, "Draw a bath, please?"

He nodded and strode out, leaving them alone together in the quiet kitchen. Remus looked at the plate as though he'd like to lick it clean.

"We thought you were dead," she said quietly. Water ran in the bathroom. "What happened? When we finally caught Fenrir -- "

He looked up at her, unspeakable horror in his eyes.

"He's dead," she said hurriedly, and the horror faded. "When we caught him, he said..."

She covered her mouth, remembering what Fenrir had said, sitting in his own stink, bound to a chair, wild with fury.

"He said they'd _eaten_ you," she managed, feeling as if she might throw up herself. She had, when they were told, though she'd waited until she was home and Ron could hold her hair back for her. 

"He would," Remus answered bitterly. Snape appeared in the doorway.

"Lupin," he said, and Remus stood, making his slow and creaky way to the bathroom. He shed Snape's shirt and his hands fumbled with the twine that held up his tattered trousers; he undressed without the slightest modesty, and they had to help him over the lip of the tub and into the bath. The water was scaldingly hot, but his teeth chattered. 

Over time, Hermione and Severus had evolved a comfortable domestic arrangement that suited their skills. He cooked, kept her bills in order, and did the marketing; she cleaned, washed the clothes, and bought the other incidentals like razors and soap. Now he looked at her and this, his look clearly said, fell under her half of the arrangement. 

"I'll notify the Order," he said, but Remus' hand shot out and grabbed his leg just below the knee, the only place it could reach.

"No," he rasped. "Spies."

"In the Order?" Severus asked, sardonically.

"No post," Remus said, his jaw set. "Floo only. And only the ones you trust."

Severus pulled his leg away, frowning at the wet mark on his trousers, and strode out of the room. Hermione picked up the soap and a washcloth, offering them to Remus. 

He moved arthritically, and he couldn't quite reach his feet or the back of his neck. She washed those places for him, scrubbing behind his ears and down his spine. His body was cris-crossed with scars, some badly healed. When she was finished he leaned back with only his head above the water, resting on the edge of the bathtub, and looked at her. 

"Lock your doors and ward them," he said. "Before you sleep tonight."

"Remus..." she began, then had to start again, staring down at the damp washcloth in her hands. "I don't know where you've been or what you know, but the war is over. Things are safe now. There aren't any spies -- who would they spy for? Voldemort's dead. Maybe there is still danger, but maybe...maybe you're stuck in the past, a little -- "

She looked up then, but his eyes were closed; he'd fallen asleep, his gaunt chest moving slowly and evenly under the water. 

She pulled the plug and woke him so that she could put one shoulder under his arm and help him stand; muck collected around the drain as the water disappeared. A drying charm was faster than a towel and she kicked his filthy trousers out of the way, helping him naked down the hall to the bedroom. She put him in the overstuffed chair by the bookcase, quickly stripped the bed, and laid on new sheets and pillowcases, all the while listening to the comforting quiet hum of Severus' voice at the floo in the living room. 

He managed to tumble into the bed under his own power, but his eyes were closing again before she even pulled the blankets up. It was only just growing dark outside. 

She walked to the windows and looked out; her little corner of London was spread before her, calm and quiet in the dusk. Clearly Remus believed there was danger there, but how could he be in his right mind? A few hours ago he'd been begging on the street and starving to death.

Still, she latched the windows and warded them, then went into the bathroom and did the same there before going into the living room. Severus was dusting the ashes from the knees of his trousers.

"I've told McGonagall, Longbottom, and Creevey," he said. "Longbottom will pass the word to Potter."

"Thanks," she said, hugging him. As always, his returning hug was awkward and hesitant, but one hand tangled in her hair and held her face against his chest. 

"He's sleeping," she said, leaning back. He tipped her chin up so that he could kiss her.

"In our bed, no doubt," he replied, but he couldn't summon up the amount of resentment he no doubt wanted to.

" _My_ bed," she reminded him. 

"Is that intended to comfort?" he asked. "Or merely a subtle hint to sod off for the evening?"

"No, you had better stay. We'll transfigure a bed, but I think we should sit up in shifts. He might wake up in the night."

"Blasted wretch."

She ignored him and instead asked, "What did McGonagall say?"

"As per his immense paranoia, which the old biddy agreed with, she will not be in attendance until tomorrow evening, which for all anyone knows will be a quiet dinner with old comrades," he replied. "She and Richard will dine with us at seven."

Hermione had once been startled to learn that McGonagall was married; a convenient arrangement where she taught at Hogwarts and he taught at Glasgow University, meeting only in the summers and yet managing to produce three children before Hermione had even been born. Since then the stories Severus had told her of her professors would have been enough to curl her hair if it was not, as it were, pre-curled. 

She transfigured a bed out of the sofa while he crept into the bedroom to retrieve their pyjamas, reporting back that Lupin was buried under the blankets and dead to the world. 

He took a book from the shelf and lit the lamp, sitting up crosslegged in their makeshift bed while she got under the covers and tried to sleep. After a few minutes, she moved her head to rest in the crook of his leg and he set down the book. 

"Tell me about Remus Lupin," she said quietly. 

"After that bath, I can't imagine he has many secrets from you," Severus replied. 

"I mean..." she shifted slightly, getting more comfortable. "He kept his distance from us during the war. We were always his students. You knew him when he was a boy, you at least spoke with him the year he taught at Hogwarts. I don't know if he has a history of being mentally unsound, or if the scars are from the full moon. I don't know if he has parents we should find. I do know you didn't call Tonks."

"Time enough for that later," he replied.

"Time enough now to tell me about him."

Severus pinched the bridge of his considerable nose, the first sign of strain he'd shown all evening. 

"I'm not sure there's much to tell. At school he was quiet, did his work well, was dominated completely by Sirius Black, though he never worshiped him as Pettigrew did. Carried out his duties as best a shy, bookish boy knows how. I can't imagine him breaking under this strain, not after '81."

"When the Potters were killed?"

"His four friends all in a go. He fared well then, considering. When he came to teach he was standoffish, which was a relief, though he seemed amiable enough. I imagine he cherished the idea of he and I somehow becoming friends."

The last was spoken with great bitterness, and Hermione knew that they were touching on sore spots that she had studiously avoided in the past.

"And the scars?" she asked. He shrugged.

"His immodesty is new; as a student he was excruciatingly careful never to be seen with so much as an open collar. That I could not tell you. He is an independent, intelligent man with far too much pride and far too little occupation. Or was."

He picked up his book, but almost immediately laid it aside.

"He will need help," he said.

"Yes, I rather thought that much," Hermione agreed.

"Months' worth. Do you propose to keep him here like a pet?"

Hermione looked up at him. Their eyes held for a long moment, and then he took up the book again. 

"I merely ask because I shall need to know whether to buy food for two or three," he said stiffly. "And whether I am to be thrown out of my lover's bed for a half-starved, half-mad werewolf with no better sense than to remain dead."

Hermione smiled. 

***

"Hermione. Hermione, wake up at once."

Hermione opened her eyes not on her bedroom ceiling but on the dusty, cobwebbed lamp in her living room. _I really must dust that soon_ , she thought, before realising that she had been woken and there was actual worry in Severus' voice.

"What is it?" she asked, blinking at him.

"Lupin," he replied. "Come and see."

She rose, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and following him to the bedroom. Remus was there, apparently still asleep, piled under what looked like every blanket she owned. She could see him shaking from the doorway.

"He's freezing," Severus said. "I've tried a warming charm and, as you can see, wasting your blankets on him, all for naught."

"It's probably hysteric," she answered, going to the bed and pulling most of the blankets off. Remus was curled into a ball, face pressed into the pillow. His cheek was clammy to the touch. She pulled off the last blanket and knelt on the bed.

" _What_ do you think you're doing?" Severus demanded as she pulled the blankets up again.

"If the warming charms aren't working it's probably psychological," she replied. "It might help if he thought he wasn't alone. Go on, get in if you're so jealous."

"Yes of course, why on earth would I be jealous of you lying in bed with a naked man," he said, crossing his arms. Hermione curled up against Remus, resting her forehead against his. After a few seconds, his teeth stopped chattering so loudly. Another minute passed, then two, and finally she heard the bedsprings creak as Severus circled the bed and lay down on top of the blanket. 

"I will have you know," he said, pulling another blanket over himself, "that this -- this farce of a sleepover -- "

"Shh," Hermione said. The trembling had stopped. Severus lay with his back pressed against Remus', staring at the opposite wall. 

" -- this utter travesty of my pride," he continued, "Could only have been accomplished by you."

Hermione felt Remus' fingers clutch at the fabric covering her arms, pulling her closer, and she smiled.

"Love you too," she said to Severus, who grunted and pulled the blanket tighter.

***

Severus was not a morning person. Some would say that he was not a person at any time of the day, but to Hermione -- who was used to his daily rhythm -- it was most evident in the period of time between waking and his second cup of tea. When one could wake him at all.

She crept out of bed the next morning, leaving the two men still sleeping, and set about preparing breakfast. On a good day, breakfast would be cold cereal or a piece of fruit, but she wasn't entirely inept at cooking and by the time Remus staggered into the kitchen, wearing a pair of Severus' trousers and a dressing-gown, bacon was hissing happily in the pan. 

"Good morning," she said with a smile. "There's tea on the table. Is Severus up?"

"Still sleeping," he mumbled, easing himself into a chair. He poured the tea with a steadier hand than yesterday, which was something. "That smells good."

"There's bacon and sausage, or I can make oatmeal."

"I haven't had meat in weeks," he replied.

"It shows."

He smiled tiredly into his teacup. "Thank you for staying with me last night."

"You were cold. Body heat," she shrugged. 

"Well, I appreciate it. I'm sorry for the shock. I wanted to be sure I wasn't found or followed."

She took the meat out of the pan, covered it with a plate, and laid some bread in the fat. She could hear her mother groan about cholesterol, but a steady diet of fried bread for a few days couldn't possibly hurt someone so gaunt-thin as Remus. 

"Remus, can I ask who's chasing you?" she inquired, as the fat hissed and popped. "You do know the war is over, don't you?"

"Sometimes I think it never is, it just pauses so each side can reload," he replied. "I was -- my jailers -- " he hesitated, rubbed his face. "Fenrir turned me over to a branch of Death Eaters operating out of Belarus, near Minsk. Reluctantly, mind you. I think he _wanted_ to eat me."

Hermione turned the bread, wondering how on earth she was cooking breakfast for a man who was calmly talking about being eaten. 

"How long has it been since the war ended?" he asked. 

"About two years," she replied. "Well, that was when Voldemort was killed. There was some cleanup afterwards, but that's all."

"They didn't tell me," he said. "But I could tell when things started going wrong for them. I don't know why they even kept me alive -- slung me in a cell and left me there, most of the time. They did -- use me," he said shortly. Hermione turned to look at him.

"Use you?" she asked. 

"They're building an army. This is not some cult that dies when you cut off its head," he said. "Within the year they'll have the numbers to attack. When I escaped they tracked me all over Europe -- I've been six months just getting home. They fed me better than I could feed myself, on the run," he said, gesturing to his body with one slim, fragile hand. "I couldn't risk sending a message -- they were everywhere. We need," he added, all in a rush, "We need to call up the Order and...and start everything again, Christ..."

He buried his face in his hands and Hermione turned off the heat on the pan, crossing to kneel next to him and taking his hands from his face.

"It's all right," she said. "We won't need the Order. You can tell the Ministry, they'll take care of it -- "

He laughed bitterly. "They never listened before; why should they listen now?"

Hermione smiled. "Scrimgeour's not the Minister anymore."

"Some paper-pushing substitute -- "

"No, one of us. Us," she added for emphasis, holding his hands between hers. He looked at her with a glint of hope in his eyes for the first time since arriving.

"Who?" he asked.

"Minerva McGonagall," she replied. Remus stared openly at her, and then began to laugh. He laughed until he coughed and choked, until tears were streaming down his face.

"Min - Min - Minerva," he managed. "Oh god, of all good fortunes I never dreamed..."

He kept laughing, until Hermione began to worry about his mind. She poured him more tea and made him drink it.

" _Stop that infernal fucking racket!_ " someone shouted from the other room. Remus breathed deeply, inbetween sips of tea.

"Severus is up," Hermione said, returning to the pan where the bread was soaking up the slowly-congealing fat. She filled three plates with a grease-lover's delight and brought them to the table. Remus began to eat, still slow and cautious, but with better colour than the day before.

"Hermione," Remus said, breath still hitching from laughter, "if I can ask a personal question..."

"Yes," she answered before it could be asked. "We are. For some time now."

"I see. It's...incongruous," he said. "Though it makes an odd sort of sense."

"The only kind he ever makes," she said, rolling her eyes in the direction of the bathroom, where water was splashing. 

"You seem happy," Remus ventured. "In a very...miserable sort of way, given that it's Severus."

"We understand each other," she replied, and felt warm to realise that it was true. "He respects me."

"HERMIONE! WHERE IS MY BLOODY RAZOR?"

"Even if it doesn't always seem like it," Hermione sighed. 

"A person should have respect," Remus murmured, nodding.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione had very little time to meet Minerva and Richard McGonagall when they emerged from her living-room floo; Remus was in the bedroom and Severus in the kitchen, both liable to appear at any time.

"Thanks for coming," she said, taking their coats and hanging them on a nearby hook. "I need a quick word..."

"I'll say hello to Snape," Richard said, striding into the kitchen. Minerva, not a whit changed since she'd been Professor McGonagall, looked at Hermione expectantly.

"Remus has important news for you and I think you'll appreciate the effort he made," Hermione said in an undertone, "But you should be prepared. Did Severus tell you anything about his appearance?"

"Just that he's not what he once was."

"He looks bad, but he's mentally pretty sound," Hermione said.

"Has he told you anything?"

"Only the barest basics, and I'd rather not garble them."

"Of course," said the Minister for Magic, walking calmly with her into the kitchen. "Good evening, Severus."

Snape looked up from laying out the silverware and nodded curtly. The little breakfast table, a cheap drop-leaf Hermione bought second-hand, was just wide enough when expanded to seat four comfortably, five at a squeeze. There were five places set there now.

Remus appeared in the doorway, looking shy and undersized in Severus' clothing. If the McGonagalls noticed his obvious ill health, they gave no sign -- Minerva took his hands and greeted him warmly, and Richard clapped him on the back and said what a pleasure it was to meet the man he'd heard so much about, just as if what he'd heard was not that Remus was dead and buried. 

They didn't speak of business while they dined, either, and the topic of why Minerva was there didn't arise until dinner was finished, Remus eating with a heartier appetite than anyone despite knowing what was to come. With the dishes cleared away, Severus reached into a cupboard and brought forth a bottle of Muggle whiskey, carrying it to the table along with five glasses and offering the first pouring to Remus, who sipped it and flushed almost immediately. He poured for the others and took his seat again.

"None of it will be pleasant," he said, tipping his head at the bottle. "I suspect we will all need this before the night is over."

Hermione herself drank two glasses. The story needed it. Remus sketched out a conspiracy that Voldemort had tolerated or perhaps not even known about, a community in eastern Europe that was training soldiers instead of schoolchildren and making best use of the destructive powers of werewolf blood. His time in a cell, the full moons during which he was forced into infecting others (volunteers, the only small mercy), and his escape he glossed over in favour of more important things: numbers of soldiers, plans he had overheard, ways in which they were open to attack. McGonagall questioned him longer than Hermione thought he could stand, longer than she herself could have stood without the whiskey. 

She questioned him too on the merry chase he'd led his captors across Europe, after his escape -- how he almost reached the French border before having to fall back to Italy, how he had been too afraid of spies to send a message even if he knew where to send it, how he'd bypassed two Death Eaters and stowed away on an imports vessel crossing the Channel to get to England. Even Severus could find little negative to say about his resourcefulness.

Finally McGonagall stood and offered Remus her hand again. 

"We'll take care of it," she said firmly. Remus wrapped his hand around hers, improperly, palm at an angle and fingers curling over her thumb.

"If you need me -- "

"Your job is to rest now," she replied, with a glance at Hermione. "Any expenses can be billed to the Ministry incidentals fund; if he insists, keep the receipts."

Remus smiled a little at that. "Now I feel like I'm home," he replied.

When they were gone, Hermione sighed at the dishes in the sink and decided they could soak until morning. Remus was half-drunk on the single glass he'd had, and anyway the more sleep the better; she helped him down the hallway and left him to undress. Severus was in the living room, swirling the last of his whiskey in his glass.

"Bed for us soon too, I think," she said. 

"The sofa again?" Severus asked. "Or the bed?"

She looked down the hallway, thinking.

"Is it so terrible to offer him a little comfort?" she asked. "You were a spy during the war, Severus. You know better than I do what he wants. What did you want?"

He considered the drink in his glass.

"Somewhere to be quiet and safe, and someone to tell me I could be," he admitted. It was the closest thing to actual vulnerability she'd ever seen in him. "And if you're fishing for compliments about whether or not you've provided me those things -- "

"Wouldn't dream of it," she grinned. "The bed, then? Just for one more night?"

"Fine, but this time he had better be wearing bedclothes. And tomorrow he must be dressed. He can't go running about in my clothing. I'll see to it before I open the shop. He will need wolfsbane, as well; the moon is ten days away, enough time to brew. I suppose the old Grimmauld Place basement will do for the rest."

Hermione solemnly reached into her pocket and presented him with the small sack of Galleon coins. He snorted, but he also smiled and pocketed them.

Remus was in bed when they came in, his eyes on the door; he closed them as they changed and she thought he was asleep until she lifted the covers and he flinched back, eyes at once wide and cautious. He turned when he felt Severus on his other side, still wary.

"We'll sleep here tonight," Hermione said. "You don't have to watch the door."

"You needn't -- "

"You have to sleep," she ordered, pulling the blanket up over their shoulders together. Severus was lying on top of it again with his own blanket, some kind of foolish masculine conceit, she supposed. 

"We'll be here," she said. Remus watched her with those awful, frightened eyes for a minute, but his breathing slowed and eventually his eyelids drooped.

Hermione was almost asleep herself when she heard him draw breath. "Severus..."

"Do shut up, Lupin," Severus answered, from somewhere far away. "I feel quite sufficiently a fool as it is without your naptime confessions."

Hermione laughed a little but she was tired, too, and if Remus replied she was already fast asleep.

***

The Ukranian Business, as the newspapers had inaccurately taken to calling it, was a mess, but McGonagall had been given the time to prepare. When all was said and done it was minor compared to the war. Severus and Hermione and Remus read about it in the newspapers, but it was no part of their lives in their warm little flat. It was, finally, not their war anymore. Remus spent most of his time reading, when he wasn't eating, and slowly he grew into the clothing Severus provided, his face rounding out and his hair turning shaggy as it lost its strawlike roughness. He didn't speak about the prison again, but from some stray indiscretion she learned that they had kept his head shaved, probably for no other purpose than to remind him that nothing was his own. He was healing, though in the evenings there was a dullness to his eyes that Hermione didn't like. 

And then there was Tonks. 

He'd asked about her, a few days after his arrival, and Hermione sent Severus away because for once his acid insistence on facing reality would do no great service. 

"I suppose she's dead," Remus said, looking at Hermione's face. Hermione shook her head, not meeting his eyes. "No?"

"She's in Paris," she said, and Remus laughed hollowly. He'd spent a week in Paris on his way home; Tonks, who could have saved him trouble and starvation, was never more than a few miles away. "She's studying art there."

"Art?" he asked. "What on earth...?"

"She couldn't stay an Auror, not after the war," Hermione murmured. "She lost her sense of proportion, she knew she wasn't holding together well. That wasn't just you -- it was everything."

"I see. But -- Paris isn't so far, why...?"

"She's married," Hermione blurted. "She thought you were dead and she couldn't mourn forever -- that's not in her, Remus, you must know that..."

He put one hand on hers, his fingers cold.

"I didn't expect a parade and my girl waiting for me when I came back," he said. "I didn't think I'd come back at all. It's all right, Hermione."

Hermione covered his hand with hers, trying to warm it. "It's a pretty welcome home for you."

"Nymphadora and I -- were always tempestuous at best," he said. "I haven't the energy for that anymore. I know what I am, Hermione. Severus says it when he thinks I can't hear. _Broken._ Coming home was my last fight. There isn't any left."

She looked at his face, seamed and drawn. He looked closer to sixty than forty-five. 

***

Out in the world, Remus was an anonymous hero, but could not remain so forever. A tactless clerk in the Ministry told the story to a friend who talked about it over lunch with another friend and was overheard by a keen-eared young opportunist who went straight to the Prophet with the news. Remus Lupin was alive, the Prophet trumpeted without a shred of actual evidence, and was living in a flat off Charing Cross Road, and furthermore was the hero who had crossed Europe to bring the news of the Ukranian Business to Great Britain. 

Owls poured in. Reporters set up camp and regularly had to be driven off by Severus, who was not averse to wielding a heavy stick in addition to his wand. Hermione had to take a leave from her job because they began turning up there, too. Severus obstinately kept his shop open, hurling jars of rat kidneys and sharp dissection tools at anyone who dared broach the subject. 

Remus, bewildered as a child in the face of all the attention, seemed to think that they ought to be polite. As the weeks had turned into months he had gained enough strength to go out walking or dine quietly at a cafe in Diagon, provided he glamoured himself sufficiently to pass unnoticed. Now suddenly these curious people had pent him up in Hermione's flat again, and too many people wanted to see him. Harry, Neville, Kingsley, Alastor, half of the students he'd taught, most of the professors he'd taught with. Harry came often, because Harry understood; he had carried the burden of a war on his shoulders as well. He was respectful of Remus, treating him at once like a father and a child, bringing him treats from Diagon and asking for his advice on love affairs and matters of business. Some nights Hermione and Severus went to bed and left Harry and Remus sitting up in the kitchen, heads bent together, speaking quietly. Sometimes he didn't come to bed until two in the morning -- but he still came to bed, creeping in next to Hermione or curling up with his back to Severus.

Hermione hadn't believed that he really was broken in those first few days, but now she did. He never rose to baits that Severus carefully and deliberately laid, and he did all he was told to do with quiet efficiency, even when Severus tested him by asking the unreasonable. Hermione's flat, which had been almost exclusively the place she and Severus slept, had become a refuge; if they wanted to make love, they went to the cramped loft over the potions shop. Severus complained, but he sharply brushed off all alternative suggestions for where Remus could go so that they could have the place to themselves again. If nothing else, the wretch needed easy access to his potions, and someone to see to his physical needs after the moon, as they always did.

It was strange, not so much to have an interloper in their bed but that she didn't realise for two months that this was what he was. She hadn't seen him as an intruder on their domestic lives -- he was someone to be cared for and protected, and they were there whether he wanted them or not, to do the protecting. It only occurred to her later that he was an interruption, and might see himself as such. He accepted their charity in a way he would have been horrified to do five years ago, but there was still a spark of pride underneath. 

And as time passed Hermione discovered him, the way she'd discovered men who looked at her on the street when she wore a short skirt in the summer. His eyes would drift over her body in the act of noticing that she was in the room, and he would turn back to his book with a slight flush on his cheeks; at dinner, if she reached across him for the salt, he watched the sway of her breasts under her shirt and then hurriedly flicked his eyes to Severus to be sure he hadn't seen. 

One morning she woke to hear him whimpering, his face pressed against the pillow, and before she thought about it at all she brushed the hair from his forehead.

"Remus, wake up," she whispered. "It's only a dream."

Then he shifted and she let out a startled "Eep." What she'd taken for his knee or the edge of his hip in her half-awake state now proved to be most definitively something else. At the same moment as she felt his erection press against her thigh, his eyes opened wide in a panic. Somewhere on the other side, Severus snorted in his sleep.

Hermione gathered her wits about her.

"You were having a nightmare, I think," she said, ignoring her body's own reaction to the knowledge -- a sudden tightness in her belly and a sensitivity to the slide of her nightshirt across her breasts. He still stared at her, panicked, face pale. "It's all right. Do you want a glass of water?"

"Please," he said, thick-tongued, and she slid out of bed. She took her time finding a glass in the kitchen and filling it; by the time she returned, he had apparently got his body under control and looked -- well, not satisfied, but at least relieved. He sat up and took the water from her, while she sat herself on the edge of the bed.

"Perhaps I ought to start looking for somewhere of my own," he said, pressing the glass to his forehead. "I'm disturbing your sleep now."

"Not Severus'," she observed sardonically. Severus slept on. 

"Yes, but you two have been good to me and I shouldn't like to overstay my welcome. McGonagall said she could offer me a small flat and a pension -- for my services to my country," Remus added with a quirk of a smile. "Harry's said I could stay with him, too."

"Don't go," Hermione insisted, tipping his face up so that he met her eyes. She took the glass out of his hand and set it on the desk. "It's no inconvenience, and we like having you here. I like having you here. You balance him, a little, you know," she said, indicating Severus with a tilt of her chin. "I love him and we get on well, because we understand each other, but -- since you've come, you've been...a buffer. Someone else to take some of the edge when he's being awful. And I like you. I always have. I want you to stay."

He nodded, not taking his eyes from her face. 

"You can't fight, and Severus can't do anything else. So it's really like having two halves of one full man," she added, smiling, and he lifted his face the few inches it took to kiss her.

She opened her mouth to say something but his lips were already pressed against hers, and she felt his tongue trace the edge of her upper lip shyly. It sparked warmth down to her fingertips, the newness of another man kissing her, overriding the urge to stiffen and pull away. No matter; he jerked back in the middle of it, nearly falling onto the bed, staring wide-eyed at her.

"I'm so sorry," he gasped, fingers tightening in the blankets. "Merlin -- Hermione -- "

"It's okay," she said quickly. "It's not -- "

"It's just been so long," he interrupted, breath coming in short gasps. "Years, and I...when I left you were just a little girl and I came back and suddenly there was this _woman_ who used to be Hermione."

She reached out to touch his face, but he flinched away.

"Severus is good to me, I can't possibly, not that you would want to, I just, I'm so sorry," he fumbled. Severus, still sleeping on the other half of the bed, snorted and shifted, pushing himself up on one elbow.

"Do you mind?" he asked. "One does like to get more than ten minutes of sleep around here."

"Remus and I were just going to get breakfast," Hermione said. 

"Hrmf," he said, as he collapsed back into the blankets. Remus was pale and still.

"It's okay," she whispered, smiling at him. "I understand. Why don't you wash, and I'll make tea."

He gave her a grateful look and brushed past quickly; she heard the snick of the door locking behind him and then, shortly after, the sound of running water. 

When Remus emerged there was toast in the rack and the tea was steeping; she poured a cup and put it in front of him when he sat down. 

"Thank you," he said meekly, stirring some milk into it and sipping carefully. Hermione went to get the butter.

"You know," she said casually, having pondered the problem for several minutes, "Severus knows a few prostitutes."

Remus choked on his tea and coughed violently.

"It's true," she continued, as he sopped up the spillage. "They come in for contraceptive and aphrodisiac potions all the time. I'm sure we could find someone for you, if it is just -- needs. Women _and_ men," she added.

"That's very generous," he managed, still coughing. He ate a few bites of dry toast and then set the slice down carefully. "I'm sorry, did you suggest _male_ prostitutes to me?"

She shrugged. 

"I suppose that means you know about Sirius and I?"

"Tonks knew. You were dead, she didn't think there was any harm in telling Harry, as if it would be a comfort that you and Sirius were together again. He told us -- Ron and me."

"Yes, well." Remus sipped his tea carefully. "It's a lovely offer, Hermione, but..."

"I find the idea a little distasteful, but I thought you ought to know it's an available resource," she said. "If it would make you feel better."

Remus gave her a sardonic look. "Well, you've succeeded in taking me out of myself, that's certain. I had thought breakfast might be rather awkward, but I should have known better."

Hermione carried her own teacup to the table along with the butter, sitting across from him.

"You wouldn't be very comfortable with a stranger?" she suggested.

"That would be...a good way of putting it, though that's not all of it," he replied. "I don't want some strange woman, or some strange man. There's an inequality there that I couldn't overcome. I'd rather be alone. Merlin, how old are you? I can't imagine why I'm discussing it with you."

"Severus is the same age as you are, and we talk about sex all the time. We have a great deal of it, if it comes to that," she said. "Remus, you know that I am nothing if not sensible."

"I suspect that was -- why I kissed you," he said. "Life is comfortable here. If there is inequality, it is on my side, not yours. I don't mind that, you wouldn't rub it in and it's the one thing Severus never touches on, though Merlin knows he's done plenty of that in the past. I think -- I wouldn't trust anyone but you. Both of you."

"How many lovers have you had?" she asked curiously. Remus frowned. "Sorry -- you needn't answer, I just wondered. It's only been Ron and Severus for me. Well, and I kissed Parvati once on a dare, but I don't think that counts."

He grinned a little. "No, I suppose you have a right to ask..." he cast his eyes up to the ceiling. "Alina Bones, fourth year, she was my first. I fancied Severus for a while, at school, but we never got on and besides, Sirius was like a force of nature once he'd made up his mind. It was Sirius up until a few weeks before James and Lily were killed. After that, there was a woman when I was about thirty, Rowan something. My mind is going, I fear. Oh, also a young man named Jack Gregorian. Then Sirius again, and Nymphadora." 

"So there have been other men?"

"Oh yes. I never bothered much being ashamed of it; who notices or cares what a werewolf does?"

Hermione patted his arm. "Well, we care, now."

"That's a good deal of the problem, Hermione," he said. "I don't look at people on the street and think, _if I don't have a shag soon I'm going to strangle myself._ But I look at you and Severus and...I would never, never try to come between you. You do know that."

"It wouldn't be up to you. I doubt Severus would be susceptible to your charms, and I wouldn't break his heart."

"Good. I'm sure it'll go away, given time."

Hermione had her doubts, but at that point Severus skulked in and crankily poured himself some tea, effectively ending the conversation. He was surly and quiet, eating quickly and leaving for the shop without much fanfare; once he was gone, Hermione put on her coat and left Remus at the kitchen table.

"I'd better check in at the archives," she said. "I'll be home before five. You can come, if you like."

"I think I'll stay here. I could use the quiet."

She gave him a lewd look, at least as lewd as she knew how. "There's lotion in the bathroom."

"Hermione!"

"Just a suggestion. Carry on, soldier," she added, and kissed him on the forehead before she'd thought about what she was doing. He blushed to the tips of his ears and she stepped out into the crisp autumn air, rather hoping it would cool her own red face.


	4. Chapter 4

The archives were cool and dusty, a quiet and peaceful place interrupted only occasionally by some scholar who needed special access to this or that artefact. It was ticking over nicely without her, though everyone was glad to see her and there were one or two things that did need attending to. The pottery was in utter disarray and there were a handful of early wizarding coins that needed cataloguing before they could be put back in their case, so she was kept busy for much of the morning.

She left at four, having run out of things to do, and returned to a quite startling scene.

She had never, not once ever, seen Severus drunk. He had whiskey sometimes and often wine with dinner, but she'd never seen him drink to excess. She had a private theory that it was because even Severus was afraid of what he might say without any inhibitions. He said quite enough when he _was_ inhibited. 

She didn't even think Remus knew _how_ to get drunk.

Yet there they sat at the table, a nearly-empty bottle of vodka (vodka!) between them, and when she came in neither of them could actually focus on her. 

"Do I want to ask?" she said, hanging up her coat and going to the icebox for the milk. 

"No. Probably not," Remus said. "Definitely not."

"Why not?" Severus demanded. "Can a man not get drunk in his own home?"

"My home," she reminded him.

"Lupin's too."

"Yes, and I blame him," she said, stirring hot chocolate powder into the milk. She muttered an incantation over it, and it immediately began to steam.

"Me? Wasn't my fault," Remus replied indignantly. "He! He brought it home! And made me drink it!"

"Here," Severus added as she sat down. He dumped the last of the vodka into her cocoa. "Drink."

"That's foul!"

"I have my reasons," Severus said darkly. Hermione rolled her eyes, but she did drink.

"What are they? You keep saying that," Remus complained. 

"Let her finish," Severus ordered. Hermione, who didn't like vodka and definitely didn't like it in hot cocoa, downed the drink quickly. Another bottle appeared from somewhere, and she groaned.

"Now," Severus said, pouring himself another glass. He poured one for Remus, too, and a good helping into Hermione's now-empty cup. It turned a muddy brown colour, mixing with the dregs. "I have a question. For Lupin."

"Forty two!" Remus cried. Hermione had read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; Severus had not, and looked perplexed.

"Forty two whats?" he asked. 

"I'll explain later," Hermione said. 

"Right, a question. I want to know," Severus held up a finger, "What you think you were doing, going round kissing my wife."

Remus sat back, shocked. His mouth opened, then closed again. He looked at Hermione. 

"First of all," she said, "That's no concern of yours, Severus. Secondly, I am not your wife."

"Ah! That reminds me." Severus rummaged in his pockets and flung a small bag at her -- the bag of Galleons. There was something else in it; she took out a small black box. She opened it, annoyance increasing. 

"This is how you propose to me?" she asked, taking a ring out of the box. It wasn't a diamond; Wizarding tradition, she knew, dictated the giving of sapphires. The blue gemstone sparkled. It was not small. "Drunk, flinging a box at my head?"

"Tedious formalities," he waved a hand dismissively. "Had it for months, never remembered at an opportune moment. To return to my point, why did you kiss my -- affianced?"

Hermione put the ring on her hand. Well, sapphires were nothing to sneeze at.

"How did you know?" Remus blurted.

"Listened to you talking in the kitchen," Severus answered imperturbably.

"Bloody hell."

"And what do you propose to do about it?" he added, turning to Hermione. 

"If you _were_ listening," she retorted, "You would know that I offered him several alternatives."

"Whores and catamites! You propose to subject our guest to venereal disease?"

"Well, what do you think I ought to do? You're the only one making a fuss," she answered. 

"You'd better marry her anyway, Severus," Remus interjected. "She's the only one who'd hire a prostitute just to please your beaky self."

"You are an adulterer," Severus said to him.

"I am not. _I'm_ not about to be married."

Hermione tilted her head back and swallowed the vodka in two gulps. Her eyes watered, but she could not possibly follow them unless she was drunk as well.

"We could duel," Remus suggested.

"While it would be immensely satisfying to murder you," Severus said, "it's hardly practical."

"It would satisfy your injured honour. I shan't do it again," Remus answered. "You could just maim me a little. I'm used to that."

"Shut up, both of you," Hermione ordered. Oddly enough, they obeyed. "Nobody's dueling over me, I'm not sixteen, I don't enjoy the prospect. We will settle this like rational human beings."

"Rationality be damned!" Severus said, pounding a fist on the table. Their glasses rattled. 

"I'm still waiting for a better idea from you," Hermione said tartly. Severus crossed his arms.

"I could throw him out."

"It's my home, so you won't, and if you tried you could have this ring back right now," she said. 

"Hear hear," Remus said weakly.

"He said he wouldn't do it again, anyway," Hermione said.

"I don't believe him."

"Then what do you propose to do?"

"I can tell you what I should like to do," Severus growled, but he looked at her when he said it. She had the distinct impression that what he would like to do would involve making her scream so loud that the people in the next _building_ would worry. 

Remus, she saw, was not even looking at her. He was watching Severus. His tongue darted out and wet his bottom lip. Hermione found herself slightly unable to think.

"I'm sure if you weren't such an arsehole to him he'd have kissed you first," she said. It was Severus' turn to rock backwards in surprise. He glanced at Remus, who looked...hungry. 

"Certainly not," he proclaimed.

"You were listening at breakfast, weren't you?" Remus said. 

"I didn't think you meant that fol-de-rol you fed her."

Remus closed the narrow gap across the kitchen table, proving his point. Hermione might have squeaked as she watched her boyfriend -- her fiancee -- kiss another man.

"Pervert," Severus gasped, when Remus leaned back. 

"Well, I want you both and can't have either, so now it's even and we can all go on as we have done," Remus said affably. 

"Go on!" Severus sputtered.

"I haven't felt this good in years," Remus said to Hermione.

"Clearly," she replied. 

"It really _is_ medicinal." He poured himself another glass of vodka. Hermione took it away from him. Severus was still staring at him, and that was when a little gear went _click_ in Hermione's brain.

"Well, if it's just _equality_ we're after," she said slowly, glancing at Severus. "I mean, that shouldn't be a problem."

"What are you talking about, woman?"

"Balance," she replied. "Really, it all works out in his favour in the end."

"Hermione?" Remus asked unsteadily. 

"I mean, if you kissed me _and then_ kissed him, where's the harm really?" she asked.

"He's not a steak! We can't split him!" Severus protested. 

"I don't think that's what Hermione is suggesting," Remus said. "You said," he added to Hermione, "this morning, that having both of us around was like having two halves of one full person."

"I am _not_ half a man," Severus said, sounding deeply insulted.

"That's not what she means and you know it," Remus replied.

"I'll thank you not to tell me what I know -- "

"Quiet!" Hermione ordered. "Remus is right, I'm not saying we should share him. I'm saying we should...keep him," she said, spreading her hands. The sapphire on her finger caught the light. "Both of us."

"Like a cocker spaniel?" Severus inquired sardonically.

"Not unless you plan to go around kissing cocker spaniels," Hermione replied. "Would it really be so different from what we have now? We already spend the night together, all the time. I'm just saying we ought to have some fun while we're about it."

Both of them looked at her as if she was out of her mind, then looked at each other uneasily.

"I don't think I have the energy for that," Remus said in a very small voice. "The spirit is willing, but I get winded just climbing a flight of stairs."

Severus began to laugh, which startled all of them. He covered his forehead with one hand.

"You are proposing we take this specimen to bed and thoroughly molest him because he hasn't had a shag in years and you like him too much to throw him out?" he asked. 

"No," Hermione said. "I'm proposing that we take Remus to bed and have deviant, perverse sex with him because we love him."

"I don't."

"Such a liar," she sighed. 

"Honestly," Remus continued, looking more and more aghast, "Just a flight of stairs. Sometimes I get dizzy if I stand up too fast. I'm really quite certain you'd be utterly disappointed in my stamina -- "

"If I were to agree to this prepost -- propos -- " Severus finally stumbled on a word. "This bizarre proposition -- "

"My heart," Remus interrupted. "It's liable to go out at any time!"

" -- what do you suppose people would say?"

Hermione laughed. "Severus Snape, since when have you ever given the slightest fuck what people say?"

"She must be drunk, she'd never swear sober," Severus said to Remus.

"And -- and just the mechanics make my head hurt..."

"But you would still marry _me?_ " Severus demanded. "I am not going to enter into some horrifying double-ceremony."

Hermione smiled. She took Severus' hand and pulled him upright as she stood, kissing him. She held up her hand, the ring flashing on her finger. 

"I will marry you," she said. "Is that your only worry?"

He glanced at Remus. "Yes," he said sullenly.

Hermione went to Remus, pulled him up too, and kissed him as well. "Your heart is fine. If you get tired, Severus is more than capable of picking up the slack."

Remus was too desperate to be sullen; he just nodded and swallowed nervously. 

"Now, I'm going to go change out of my dusty clothing. _If_ you gentlemen care to join me, I'll be in the bedroom," she said, marveling at how bossy she sounded -- Ron and Harry were right, she really was an insufferable boss. She left them standing in the kitchen, neither completely steady on his feet, staring awkwardly at each other. 

She slipped out of her shoes and socks in the hallway, not quite sure if they would even follow her. She didn't hear them as she unbuttoned her blouse and took it off; when she reached for the strap of her bra, however, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Severus kissed the side of her neck. She turned her head to kiss him properly, twisting slightly in his arms as he helped her take it off. 

"Hi," she said against his lips. "Did you kill Remus?"

"He's picked an awkward time to be shy," he replied, his voice a deep rumble in her ear. He circled around and kissed her again, pulling her close with an arm around her waist. She twisted in the other direction, enough to see Remus standing hesitantly in the doorway.

"I've seen you naked, you know," she said to him, and Severus laughed against her throat. Remus merely watched, eyes dark, as Severus hooked his thumbs in her skirt and pulled it down. 

"We're not putting on a show," Severus said. Hermione turned back to him, but a moment later she felt Remus -- _smelled_ him, dusty books and vodka -- as he kissed her shoulder where Severus had, a moment ago. His hands slid down her arms, holding her loosely just above the elbow. 

"If I'm intruding," he said, sounding only half-joking, but she laughed anyway.

"Take off your shirt -- and your belt, the buckle's freezing," she suggested. He shrugged the shirt off while she worked on the buttons of Severus'. It was hard, because he kept kissing her, possessively, on the lips and cheek, high on her throat, then just below her ear -- 

She tilted her head back as Remus leaned over her shoulder and distracted him with another kiss. She was pinned between two bodies, each so warm she thought she might burn. Remus leaned heavily on her, trousers almost sliding down his hips. She wriggled delightedly and they did fall, leaving both of them nearly naked while Severus still hadn't got quite all the way out of his shirt. 

"Lie down before you fall down, wretch," Severus ordered. Remus kissed Hermione's shoulder again, then stepped back so that she could help Severus undress. When she looked up from undoing his flies, she saw that Remus was lying on his side, one arm resting on the pillow and the other spread on the blanket in front of him, watching them. His erection lay against his stomach, looking almost painful, but he didn't touch it. She wondered if he'd forgotten how. 

She cupped one hand against the insistent bulge in Severus' trousers, kissing him.

"You wouldn't mind, would you?" she asked in his ear, biting his earlobe. He traced one hand lightly down the curve of her back and pushed her panties off. "I'll make it up to you."

"You had better," he said, but he smiled as he said it, and that reassured her more than any promises of trust and love could have.

She pushed Remus gently over and straddled his thighs, then paused. This would never work; he was still anxious, still almost passive, and he wouldn't enjoy it. She wanted him to enjoy it. All the more because Severus should see -- this raw need, that they could care for. 

She pulled him up and over, rolling, until he lay on top of her, his eyes level with hers. She kissed his nose.

"It's all right," she said, hitching her body slightly and wrapping her thighs around his still-bony hips. She felt him inside her, wondering if he'd even meant to, and then heard him moan, ragged and guttural. She reached one hand out blindly.

"Severus," she said. "Come along."

He knelt behind Remus, still wearing his trousers, damn him, and held the other man's shoulders.

"If I am to be cuckolded, you will do the thing properly," he said.

"Not -- cuckolding," Remus moaned, barely moving -- but moving, thrusting slowly as if he were going to hurt her. "You're welcome to -- mmh -- join in..."

"I'm not going to bugger you first time out," Severus answered sharply. Remus swore. Hermione moaned as he licked his tongue across one breast. 

"Been buggered... _Hermione_...before," Remus managed, breathless. 

"Don't remind me."

Hermione laughed, then cut off in the middle abruptly as Remus thrust harder. He leaned forward, cradling her head in his hands as he gasped and moaned. His shoulders were slick with sweat when she touched them, thinking that was where Severus was holding him; instead she ran her hands down his ribcage, and found one of Severus' hands on Remus' thigh, the other on his hip. Supporting him, she realised. Showing him what to do. 

Remus seemed lost in some other world now, barely conscious of either of them; she felt him tasting her skin, sucking one hard nipple between his teeth and then licking away the sting. Pleasure raced through her nerves, not just at the physical act but because he so obviously appreciated it, because his desperate attention was for her and was not something he could have transmitted to a stranger. She wasn't going to orgasm, not before he did, but she knew she would be close. She shut her eyes and moaned. 

"I -- Hermione -- I -- " he managed, but with a sharp final thrust he collapsed, another ragged groan vibrating against her collarbone. She could feel him gasping for breath. She stroked his hair, looking up at Severus. He frowned, but it was more thoughtful than disapproving. 

"That was wretched," he said finally. Remus laughed and slowly eased himself to one side, kissing Hermione as he went.

"Have a heart," he answered, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. "It's my first orgasm in three years."

"You've no technique at all. We shall have to remedy that."

"Mmh," Remus replied, too relaxed to be insulted. "Well, show me, then."

"Yes, Severus," Hermione said, pushing herself up on her elbows. "Do show him."

He pressed one hand against his own flat stomach and banished the trousers and underthings easily, which was pure showmanship on his part. Hermione glanced at Remus, but Remus was studying the long, angular lines of Severus' body.

"Good choice," he said to Hermione, who laughed again and shoved him over a little so that Severus could lie down. He cupped both her breasts in his hands as she leaned over him and took him inside her, moving her hips slowly.

"Lovely," Remus breathed.

"She is," Severus replied.

"I wasn't referring to her," Remus said, and kissed him even as Hermione looked down on them, enjoying the slick way Severus' cock moved inside her, the control he granted her. 

Remus kept kissing him as they fucked ( _fucked!_ ), one hand creeping over to spread itself across his stomach. Hermione watched, more aroused than she had actually known possible, as her lover and...well, her new lover explored each other. Remus lifted his hand to stroke her back, then pushed himself up and nuzzled her shoulder. She cried out and ducked her head as Severus arched his back, but she wasn't quite there -- neither, she sensed, was he. 

Remus leaned all the way up and moved behind her, and she suddenly felt him press against her back, his head resting on one shoulder.

"Your heart," she teased, bending to kiss Severus, "seems to be fine."

"It does," Remus answered gravely. She felt the tip of his cock press against her thigh, then the length of it slide along her arse. "Not to impose, Hermione -- "

"Yes, now is -- mmm -- the time for politeness," she replied.

"One does like to ask first," he continued, tracing odd shapes and lines on her back. "I know a charm that would make it considerably easier -- "

"Please, Remus, stop talking," she replied. She heard him whisper something, felt his hands settle on her hips, and felt an odd -- tingling, a sensitivity -- she could feel her blood pulse, all over her body, as Remus pressed gently against her. She rocked back, trying to relax, remembering one time she and Severus -- 

"Oh god," she said, as Remus delicately moved his hips and every nerve ending in her body stood taut. 

"I can -- "

"Don't -- don't stop -- "

He held her by the waist and moved with her, which drove each thrust harder against Severus, who writhed and swore as well. She wasn't even expecting the orgasm when it caught her and took her breath away, muscles convulsing, pleasure so intense and final that she thought she might pass out. She was distantly aware of Severus coming -- she knew the low rumbling moan well enough -- but she didn't feel Remus shudder against her until he pushed once more and a second orgasm made her cry out. 

She eased herself down on Severus' chest, not really trusting her muscles to hold her much longer, and felt Remus topple onto the bed next to them.

"Much better," Severus murmured. "Not but that I'd expect you'd be better in that area of -- "

"Please, shut up," she told him. He shoved her off his chest, though it was -- well, an affectionate shove. She fell into the bed between them, and Remus promptly wrapped an arm around her waist. 

"Now we sleep?" he asked hopefully. 

"Yes," she answered, nuzzling Severus' cheek. He kissed her ear. "Now we sleep."

"Wait," Severus said, sitting up. Hermione moaned.

"What?"

He leaned over the edge of the bed and she saw him pick up her skirt. He reached into the pocket and withdrew the bag of Galleons. She smiled, suddenly. 

"Lupin," he barked.

"What?" Remus asked, eyes closed. Severus tossed the Galleons on his chest. "What are...?"

"You need a haircut," Severus said. Hermione stroked Remus' arm.

"I'll explain in the morning," she whispered. "You'll like it."

Remus studied the bag, then carefully put it on the edge of the bed, next to his pillow. Hermione smiled at Severus and stroked his cheek as he settled down again. 

***

She woke once, in the night, feeling stiff and rather as though she might like a long bath in the morning, but unwilling to move just yet. Severus had one arm stretched across her belly and Remus had buried his face in her shoulder where it met her neck. She sighed happily.

Severus was breathing slowly, a serene dead weight as usual. Remus, however, didn't seem to be asleep; his shoulders rose and fell evenly but too quickly. She was about to ask if he was all right when she felt a hot dampness against her skin and realised he was crying. She didn't think it was grief, not really -- just release of another sort. She doubted he ever had before, not since finding them. Even so he wasn't sobbing or weeping, just crying. Silently and shamefully, as grown men do. 

_And I'm a grown woman,_ she thought. _And I chose this._

She must have said at least part of it out loud, without realising; Severus grunted and slid a little closer.

"Mmf?" he asked.

"Nothing. Go to sleep," she whispered. 

"Hmm."

She turned her head and kissed Remus' hair, just above his forehead. It really was getting long; Severus was right, he'd have to cut it soon. And they would both have to help Severus move out of that poky flat above the shop. Perhaps she should move, too. They could get somewhere bigger, with a proper dining room. She'd like a library, somewhere she and Severus could work while Remus read. Or she could read while Severus worked and Remus napped on the sofa. Or...

She drifted back into sleep, one arm crooked around Severus' shoulders, her head nodding against Remus' too-long hair.


End file.
